ronnie picks rose petalsand eats them, chews the pink yellowin his cigarette teeth. his sister, peggy,asks how they taste, and he says, "good,like whimsy and perfume," and picks three petalsfat with pigment and water; she tastes the firstand likes the second and the third is the sweet on her tonguewhen ronnie dies of liver failure. she eats the reddestblooms on his casket.

ii.

if tommy were a girl and jennya boy, the children would be perfect:tommy with impish nose and nymph hands,jenny rumbling with the rooneys from new city,and mother frets for both their blond[e] heads.

peggy buys the twins paletas, and ronniestays with grandpa, most days. he comes homeand tells jenny they're blackfoot: she could havebeen a warrior woman, and tommy a medicine man,and mother wouldn't fret when tommy kissed jason.

ronnie is sixteen and thin.

iii.

willy is the youngest boy and clings to skirts,plays with dolls because eva smothered him. tommypushes him down the stairs when jenny will call him faggotif he doesn't; willy cries until his eyes look like cracked eggsand tommy takes him outside to play beneath the fire escape.

they toke, fingers shaking because mother might smellfrom her incessantly open window, but she smells delinquentsand yells names that aren't her children's.

"tommy, my head feels funny.""yeah. that's the good part."

iv.

eva lives with her husband and visitsbecause mother is overwhelmed; evalooks like austria, eva speaks her mother's severe,eva was the beauty queen and tells peggy she lookspretty when she braids her hair. "we're lakota, you know,from our father's side. he was a war hero."

"ronnie's a moron." but ronnie talks to grandpa,and eva leaves when evening falls.

v.

tommy overdoses; peggy sold him his first hit,and jenny married a rooney. eva attended the weddingbut only held their first son. the other two were squarelike ronnie in manhood: ruddy-faced and stout, grounded.

willy is sixteen and thin.

vi.

jason stands at ronnie's funeral, watchingpeggy nibble and sob. he touches her shouldersand she looks at him. "you came?"